It is its own brand of "frustrating" -- to look at a project and think inside, "what the hell was I thinking?"
"What the hell was I thinking" is a catch-all - the kind of phrase that aims to question every action involving subject-action, and then determine what may have went wrong and where.
Of course the answer is really simple: I STOPPED writing.
And why?
Enter the Masochist: "because you are a half-talented and otherwise lucky... Hack. You've the discipline of a block of cheese trapped in hell. Yeah, that melts, but at least it stays together!"
He goes on: "The corpse of the reanimated Lord Byron would not wipe the maggots out of his royal ass with the pages you put out."
"Easy now," says the Mediator, "abusive language will get us no where."
Then the Apologist, sensing opportunity, creeps out of the corner and opens up: "there just hasn't been any time," he says, "all the hustle and bustle, the work, the lack of sleep... this stuff is hard, you know."
Finally, enter Super Ego (aka: Grand Poo-bah, Captain Billy Bad Ass and King Daddy Big Dick): "just write - quit being such a bitch."
The Mediator shakes his head and the Apologist puts his hands in his face - fending off tears, most likely. Meanwhile, the Masochist nods with agreement.
Truth be told, I've dirtied plenty of napkins in the last year or so. There are problems, though, with napkins - disastrously obvious problems. Yet I cannot help but put myself in the state and/or condition when such a thing seems like a good idea. Aside from the haughty world-loathing waiter or waitress crumpling it up, dumping into the left over soup while I'm in the bathroom, there is just plain old losing them, forgetting them. Any combination of the two dooms a napkin to the mercy of The Dreaded Spin Cycle or the waste bin. After that - a night's worth of scrawling, if I can find it, is reduced to a pocketful of potential bellybutton lint.
So I got smart, invested in some notepads -- even that didn't help. The first one drowned in a sea of Wooky Jack and coffee and the second one was murdered by a band of malicious cats. The third notebook, the one with a pleasant-looking leaf pattern - was loaned to a beautiful woman and never returned. While I let that one go, the fourth notebook was hard to get over: it had the original draft of a story I was actually working on - and it was sucked out of the passenger-side window somewhere between here and Yosemite. If it had a name, I would have screamed it till my voice turned coarse.
Return to nature, indeed.
Somewhere between there and conscious thought, I realized some thing: the electronic form!
Eureka!
Then the Purist began belly-aching, making note of all the pencil scratches I left in a storage bin in Visalia. The Realist shut the Purist up rather quickly, accusing him with doing "purely nothing." Somehow, we wound up here.
Purist, Realist, Masochist, Apologist, Mediator - I should have myself checked for a latent case of schizophrenia. Of course, I could just settle myself with the idea that people are multidimensional creatures, that we live in 3D and act in four. That could just be the Apologist speaking, too.
Anyway -- the point of this post is to say that I am back - and that there is more to come.
I need to rework myself into the habit of writing and you, dear reader, get to put up with it.
Meanwhile: Mahalo.
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Homeless Survey - Day One - Before and After (unedited)
I take an icy hot shower at 4:13 p.m. - dull cold to heat and about thirty minutes long.
It’s shame to admit wasting that much water - a Californian, of all people!
I do, however, need my relief - the fourteen hour long day was finally over. It began after I skimped through two hours of sleep on Broadway and Divisadero, and walked into the casino early - too early. It was 2:49 am, so the drunkards were good and gone. A seemingly-sober, weary-eyed weirdo shooting inside and not gambling was different - I could feel the tension in the room.
Before I could seat myself, the security guard on duty shouted “Hold there, govna’,” and carded me. I showed him my ID, my club card, and I asked if there was a problem.
“You look like somebody I missed,” he said - and it reminded me of a firefighter that once said I looked like any other hobo. Still, it was short and sweet, so I placed my order at the bar - soup - and shuffled on to the balcony, towards the corner that held the dishes. Even from across, I could hear a man enthralled by a proposed personal moment of truth.
He was playing Hold’em, and spiked a King with an Ace kicker.
He said, though, that he knew that his opponent nailed his two pair, which came at the turn. Still, he played it anyway.
“I had to see it,” he said.
And that he did - incessantly betting till they capped the river and the pocket pair was exposed.
“I lost,” he said, “but I was right.”
It was worth a smile, and it was nice to think about poker for a minute. I wouldn‘t play - I came for a meal, and had no stomach to walk to Denny’s, the drive-in to live-action plays and tales of human travesty. I remember meeting an elderly woman at a Denny’s one night - the one on Divisadero and Abby. From what I gathered, she was on the Amtrak heading north from Los Angeles and got off the train a few stops too early. Nobody was answering her calls, and she had to settle for room arrangements somewhere up the street. She never made it to her room.
The cab she called never came, and she would run out of pocket change - no pay phone for her. I asked if she would like to use my phone more than once, but she refused. I even offered her a cab ride to her room, which she also refused. Finally, she fell asleep at a table in a neighboring McDonalds, and that was the last I saw of her.
The feature presentation changes with each location, as you would imagine.
North east from downtown, there is the Denny’s along the highway. Many are drug-spent - if they are women, they are likely to be a part of the sex trade. This is no different for men, but not as likely. All the same - together, that sort of employment and lifestyle make for irreparable abuse of the body. I can always tell.
Many of them look twice their age; just as many look younger than me. I see them as often as commuters see the Fresno Area Express, and even if you accept that it is there, seeing it will always leaves the strongest impressions.
That world, was, however , quite far from the casino - or at least, as far away as the balcony stretched onto the concrete bordering Van Ness Ave.
It made for a fine bit of contrast - to see people gambling hundreds and thousands on one side of the gate and people scraping up pennies, bumming cigarettes on the other. It’s like a Wall Street pipedream
So I ate and made an impromptu iced coffee, scribbled a small bit and began my walk to the shelter.
The surveying would start at the crack of sunrise, somewhere just before six, and we were off. The P4 staff and volunteers took “The Hill”, which is further down G Street towards the overpass, while the volunteers hit the neighboring missions. I did not get to see The Hill - I had to go to work.
But I met a man who stuck claim to a trial with loaded jury, and claimed that the public defender was the public’s worst enemy. He was a welder before he made it to the shelters.
Then there was the man who was always running - nobody could know a thing about what happened at home, some fugitive of love kind of thing.
Together, our group of three surveyors accounted for five - not so bad, not so great for two hours.
Now there is eight hours of paid work to be done, and I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow. I’ve gone longer without sleep, but it was never a twelve hour day of work on two hours of sleep.
For whatever it‘s worth - we'll see what tomorrow brings.
It’s shame to admit wasting that much water - a Californian, of all people!
I do, however, need my relief - the fourteen hour long day was finally over. It began after I skimped through two hours of sleep on Broadway and Divisadero, and walked into the casino early - too early. It was 2:49 am, so the drunkards were good and gone. A seemingly-sober, weary-eyed weirdo shooting inside and not gambling was different - I could feel the tension in the room.
Before I could seat myself, the security guard on duty shouted “Hold there, govna’,” and carded me. I showed him my ID, my club card, and I asked if there was a problem.
“You look like somebody I missed,” he said - and it reminded me of a firefighter that once said I looked like any other hobo. Still, it was short and sweet, so I placed my order at the bar - soup - and shuffled on to the balcony, towards the corner that held the dishes. Even from across, I could hear a man enthralled by a proposed personal moment of truth.
He was playing Hold’em, and spiked a King with an Ace kicker.
He said, though, that he knew that his opponent nailed his two pair, which came at the turn. Still, he played it anyway.
“I had to see it,” he said.
And that he did - incessantly betting till they capped the river and the pocket pair was exposed.
“I lost,” he said, “but I was right.”
It was worth a smile, and it was nice to think about poker for a minute. I wouldn‘t play - I came for a meal, and had no stomach to walk to Denny’s, the drive-in to live-action plays and tales of human travesty. I remember meeting an elderly woman at a Denny’s one night - the one on Divisadero and Abby. From what I gathered, she was on the Amtrak heading north from Los Angeles and got off the train a few stops too early. Nobody was answering her calls, and she had to settle for room arrangements somewhere up the street. She never made it to her room.
The cab she called never came, and she would run out of pocket change - no pay phone for her. I asked if she would like to use my phone more than once, but she refused. I even offered her a cab ride to her room, which she also refused. Finally, she fell asleep at a table in a neighboring McDonalds, and that was the last I saw of her.
The feature presentation changes with each location, as you would imagine.
North east from downtown, there is the Denny’s along the highway. Many are drug-spent - if they are women, they are likely to be a part of the sex trade. This is no different for men, but not as likely. All the same - together, that sort of employment and lifestyle make for irreparable abuse of the body. I can always tell.
Many of them look twice their age; just as many look younger than me. I see them as often as commuters see the Fresno Area Express, and even if you accept that it is there, seeing it will always leaves the strongest impressions.
That world, was, however , quite far from the casino - or at least, as far away as the balcony stretched onto the concrete bordering Van Ness Ave.
It made for a fine bit of contrast - to see people gambling hundreds and thousands on one side of the gate and people scraping up pennies, bumming cigarettes on the other. It’s like a Wall Street pipedream
So I ate and made an impromptu iced coffee, scribbled a small bit and began my walk to the shelter.
The surveying would start at the crack of sunrise, somewhere just before six, and we were off. The P4 staff and volunteers took “The Hill”, which is further down G Street towards the overpass, while the volunteers hit the neighboring missions. I did not get to see The Hill - I had to go to work.
But I met a man who stuck claim to a trial with loaded jury, and claimed that the public defender was the public’s worst enemy. He was a welder before he made it to the shelters.
Then there was the man who was always running - nobody could know a thing about what happened at home, some fugitive of love kind of thing.
Together, our group of three surveyors accounted for five - not so bad, not so great for two hours.
Now there is eight hours of paid work to be done, and I don’t know if I can make it tomorrow. I’ve gone longer without sleep, but it was never a twelve hour day of work on two hours of sleep.
For whatever it‘s worth - we'll see what tomorrow brings.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Channeling
I see the minds and bodies of my generation war-torn, ragged, twisted, spun - all crank and crack-cocaine eyes - dragging their feet and spirits behind them like rags over the blood, urine, and sweat stained streets of here
of now -
these streets, these apathy-spent broken-dream boulevards so casually ignored by arrogant faith and militant worship of the American Illusion.
I see their todays bought and sold and their tomorrows already spent by the hands and words of self-anointed pharaohs that froth falsity from well-fed lips, that father bastard children who slowly sold their souls for semblances of security and sanity and scrawled "Do anything for money" on the back of dirty bookstore business cards;
Who, after being exiled again, and again, stumbled through Ventura Avenue, through speech mush-mouthed by methadone, returned to Taco Flat defeated and shamed, eyes filled with yearning and jaundice and hep and hillbilly heroin after seeking nicotine and pocket change from high rollers listlessly smoking cigarettes from a casino balcony aside;
Who stood on highway embankments, waved signs, begged for malt liquor escapes before sifting through dumpsters for aluminum can coins and plastic bottle pennies, and settled finally for restless sleep in Courthouse Park under the dull bus stop lights wrapped in rags and urine soaked sleeping bags
Who, before the badge-clad clean-up crews whisked them away to Kings Canyon for a wristband and a stern chiding lecture, hopelessly waved flags, and cried America, America, to the drone of the dozer and the street-sweeping blitzkrieg;
Who, against the racket of the highway and the humming of streetlights, whispered night terrors of Saigon, of blood cooling within the steaming jungles, of phantom limbs, of brethren splayed over the sand, and of Charlie screaming righteous profanity in twisted tongues
Who still fight these wars - their own wars - long after they have fought ours, and, as they bleed sanity from ears stripped of skin by the wailing winds of the desolate desert Babylon, are released to return home - left to walk class-war-weathered streets unarmed,
unprepared
unaccounted for.
of now -
these streets, these apathy-spent broken-dream boulevards so casually ignored by arrogant faith and militant worship of the American Illusion.
I see their todays bought and sold and their tomorrows already spent by the hands and words of self-anointed pharaohs that froth falsity from well-fed lips, that father bastard children who slowly sold their souls for semblances of security and sanity and scrawled "Do anything for money" on the back of dirty bookstore business cards;
Who, after being exiled again, and again, stumbled through Ventura Avenue, through speech mush-mouthed by methadone, returned to Taco Flat defeated and shamed, eyes filled with yearning and jaundice and hep and hillbilly heroin after seeking nicotine and pocket change from high rollers listlessly smoking cigarettes from a casino balcony aside;
Who stood on highway embankments, waved signs, begged for malt liquor escapes before sifting through dumpsters for aluminum can coins and plastic bottle pennies, and settled finally for restless sleep in Courthouse Park under the dull bus stop lights wrapped in rags and urine soaked sleeping bags
Who, before the badge-clad clean-up crews whisked them away to Kings Canyon for a wristband and a stern chiding lecture, hopelessly waved flags, and cried America, America, to the drone of the dozer and the street-sweeping blitzkrieg;
Who, against the racket of the highway and the humming of streetlights, whispered night terrors of Saigon, of blood cooling within the steaming jungles, of phantom limbs, of brethren splayed over the sand, and of Charlie screaming righteous profanity in twisted tongues
Who still fight these wars - their own wars - long after they have fought ours, and, as they bleed sanity from ears stripped of skin by the wailing winds of the desolate desert Babylon, are released to return home - left to walk class-war-weathered streets unarmed,
unprepared
unaccounted for.
The Slaughter of the Fattened Calf
I was greeted - so many years ago - with this: "The prodigal son returns!"
Who ever thinks that of themselves - that they are off sinning and the whole like, and that they spend their today's and tomorrows simply spending?
Suffice it to say, we delude ourselves how ever and whenever necessary. It's a survival mechanism in some people, I think. Self-loathing is easily a fatal condition.
So - after hearing that, I decided to look it up, get to know it, perhaps understand the context and the relation - why somebody would say something like that to me. As I said - we delude ourselves. That's right, me too.
I threw a lot of 'why's in the air, and it left a particularly sour taste in my mouth.
I tote about this world like a fool. Some one, who at some point, I would openly point to - in my mind of course - and say, that is a fool. And I wouldn't say it at a whim - it would not be a snap-judgment. I would get to know me before I would call me such a thing - watch for habits, learn the nuances. Then, I would say: that is a fool.
Why do I live like I have lost everything?
Why do I lose myself?
I cycled through my mind of all the people and things that I love, took inventory, and found that nothing was missing. The state of the world is what it is, but - to date - I have not done a goddamn thing to make it better.
No complaints - see?
End tangent - all the same, I look up to the skies and say to myself... Stop. Just stop. You leave broken mirrors in your wake and you take more than you give.
I think to myself, if I was as hard on myself as I was on everybody else, I would be doing much better than I am these days.
No blame.
Just me.
Fix it - quit fucking up.
Who ever thinks that of themselves - that they are off sinning and the whole like, and that they spend their today's and tomorrows simply spending?
Suffice it to say, we delude ourselves how ever and whenever necessary. It's a survival mechanism in some people, I think. Self-loathing is easily a fatal condition.
So - after hearing that, I decided to look it up, get to know it, perhaps understand the context and the relation - why somebody would say something like that to me. As I said - we delude ourselves. That's right, me too.
I threw a lot of 'why's in the air, and it left a particularly sour taste in my mouth.
I tote about this world like a fool. Some one, who at some point, I would openly point to - in my mind of course - and say, that is a fool. And I wouldn't say it at a whim - it would not be a snap-judgment. I would get to know me before I would call me such a thing - watch for habits, learn the nuances. Then, I would say: that is a fool.
Why do I live like I have lost everything?
Why do I lose myself?
I cycled through my mind of all the people and things that I love, took inventory, and found that nothing was missing. The state of the world is what it is, but - to date - I have not done a goddamn thing to make it better.
No complaints - see?
End tangent - all the same, I look up to the skies and say to myself... Stop. Just stop. You leave broken mirrors in your wake and you take more than you give.
I think to myself, if I was as hard on myself as I was on everybody else, I would be doing much better than I am these days.
No blame.
Just me.
Fix it - quit fucking up.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
You & Me (Complete)
When I pass your eyes, scrawly-faced,
I'm homeless first and human last:
motel drive dreck
mangled trash
motherless miscreant
and human last.
When I pass your eyes, sleepless and unsettled,
I am the addict
the asshole
the bastard and the blotch
the stain
the imperfect card that leads the house down and astray
And I am human last.
When you pass my eyes you are your words
your gestures
kindness and kinship
your faces, smiles
and passive aggressive nuances.
When you pass my eyes I am your shadow
your follower
fanatic and fraternal son
brother
compatriot
care taker, giver
human first; judge and jury last.
I'm homeless first and human last:
motel drive dreck
mangled trash
motherless miscreant
and human last.
When I pass your eyes, sleepless and unsettled,
I am the addict
the asshole
the bastard and the blotch
the stain
the imperfect card that leads the house down and astray
And I am human last.
When you pass my eyes you are your words
your gestures
kindness and kinship
your faces, smiles
and passive aggressive nuances.
When you pass my eyes I am your shadow
your follower
fanatic and fraternal son
brother
compatriot
care taker, giver
human first; judge and jury last.
Sunday, May 29, 2011
Once Whole, Then Bits, Now Pieces
Dusty bronze bells ring as he pushed his way through the door and I looked up to see this man in his mid-forties with disheveled hair, eyes peeled, stirred and shaken.
Business casual, I said my hello - “let me know if you need a hand with anything” - and casually requested that he leave his bag up front. It was liquor store plastic, the usual black, and stuffed with papers.
He complied, I handed him a ticket, then he aimlessly walked across the counter, through half the store, before he returned to the front desk.
“What,” he stammered, “ do I need to open a rental account?”
“An ID,” I say, “and a full cash deposit, or you can leave a credit card on file.”
Before I got into the finer points of the rental policy, that it’s only to prevent negligence, he cut in, scratching the side of his head - a small white wrist band was dangling above his forearm.
“Well, I… don’t have one.”
He pointed to the wrist band, which from what I saw read “Behavioral Health” and then he said, “I have this. This is really me, and I have an American Express Platinum card with no limit.”
“Well,” I said, “it is a requirement - the ID - so you’re more than welcome to return when you get one.”
He did not complain - nor did he demand any leniency or special favor. He did not demand to see the manager; nor did he call me any sort of obscenity. All he did was acknowledge the Rule of Law, nodding his head, before he sheepishly asked if he could continue browsing. I nodded back, but watched him closely as he returned to the back of the store to shuffle through videos he most certainly would never see.
I could tell that something was wrong with him - not morally wrong, nothing damnable, nothing evil, but unquiet, stirred, amiss. His eyes bled restlessness and sleep deprivation from their corners, like a man spent, exhausted, from a near-eternal, rampant chase through hell. He would walk by, whispering to himself beneath his breath, but he did not disturb anybody or anything, and everything that he took from the shelves he returned with great care. Really, he was more courteous and considerate than most in his condition.
Still, this man walked with so much weight in his steps I thought the sewer lines would explode.
Finally, he returned from the back of the store and said, “OK - I’ll get out of your hair.”
“No problem,” I said.
He fumbled through his pockets, searching for his ticket, and drew a blank. I picked it up and handed it to him anyway, particular as he was.
“You trust me?”
“I guess so,” I said.
He thanked me and left, calmer, it seemed, than he was when he entered, and I told him to take care.
Well, he came back today, this rainy, windy, uncharacteristically May day. This time he looked like hammered shit - still a bundle a nerves, still unsettled, but almost thoroughly abused. I recognized him immediately despite the fact that his hands, his face, his clothing - rain-specked - looked as if he was dragged across the street and beaten.
No bag, no wrist band - just weary, wild eyes, and a dirty napkin pressed against a busted lip.
“Can I just get warm? I swear I won‘t bother anybody.”
This heart rarely bleeds, and when it does, it dries long before it trickles. I battle a demon that speaks the filthiest of all truths - I alone cannot save the world. Still, I could not summon the nerve to say ‘no.’ Before he could get an answer out of me, on-site security approached him and escorted him outside. It would have ended there, if he did not try and flag down a car in the parking lot. Security made the move to remove him from the premises, but he found his way back inside and did the worst thing he could possibly do: succumb to desperation.
He had taken a business card and scrawled “Do Anything - $ - Joe Outside” on the back.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, biting my tongue to keep from asking him why he would stoop so low - but I didn’t - I knew why. And now I had to follow the letter of the unforgiving law. He was long gone before the authorities arrived, but I knew that he was no better off. At least, if he had been arrested, he might have wound up back at the mental health clinic.
Were he so lucky.
Instead, I knew that, from today and on, “Joe” would become like thousands of others - derelict and hungry, lost and objectified, stumbling against the backdrop of endless night into living, senseless and otherwise unjustifiable perdition. Whatever humanity he had left, whoever he was, that name, that person, is somewhere, like his wrist band: lost - lying at the fringe of the unforgiving streets.
Business casual, I said my hello - “let me know if you need a hand with anything” - and casually requested that he leave his bag up front. It was liquor store plastic, the usual black, and stuffed with papers.
He complied, I handed him a ticket, then he aimlessly walked across the counter, through half the store, before he returned to the front desk.
“What,” he stammered, “ do I need to open a rental account?”
“An ID,” I say, “and a full cash deposit, or you can leave a credit card on file.”
Before I got into the finer points of the rental policy, that it’s only to prevent negligence, he cut in, scratching the side of his head - a small white wrist band was dangling above his forearm.
“Well, I… don’t have one.”
He pointed to the wrist band, which from what I saw read “Behavioral Health” and then he said, “I have this. This is really me, and I have an American Express Platinum card with no limit.”
“Well,” I said, “it is a requirement - the ID - so you’re more than welcome to return when you get one.”
He did not complain - nor did he demand any leniency or special favor. He did not demand to see the manager; nor did he call me any sort of obscenity. All he did was acknowledge the Rule of Law, nodding his head, before he sheepishly asked if he could continue browsing. I nodded back, but watched him closely as he returned to the back of the store to shuffle through videos he most certainly would never see.
I could tell that something was wrong with him - not morally wrong, nothing damnable, nothing evil, but unquiet, stirred, amiss. His eyes bled restlessness and sleep deprivation from their corners, like a man spent, exhausted, from a near-eternal, rampant chase through hell. He would walk by, whispering to himself beneath his breath, but he did not disturb anybody or anything, and everything that he took from the shelves he returned with great care. Really, he was more courteous and considerate than most in his condition.
Still, this man walked with so much weight in his steps I thought the sewer lines would explode.
Finally, he returned from the back of the store and said, “OK - I’ll get out of your hair.”
“No problem,” I said.
He fumbled through his pockets, searching for his ticket, and drew a blank. I picked it up and handed it to him anyway, particular as he was.
“You trust me?”
“I guess so,” I said.
He thanked me and left, calmer, it seemed, than he was when he entered, and I told him to take care.
Well, he came back today, this rainy, windy, uncharacteristically May day. This time he looked like hammered shit - still a bundle a nerves, still unsettled, but almost thoroughly abused. I recognized him immediately despite the fact that his hands, his face, his clothing - rain-specked - looked as if he was dragged across the street and beaten.
No bag, no wrist band - just weary, wild eyes, and a dirty napkin pressed against a busted lip.
“Can I just get warm? I swear I won‘t bother anybody.”
This heart rarely bleeds, and when it does, it dries long before it trickles. I battle a demon that speaks the filthiest of all truths - I alone cannot save the world. Still, I could not summon the nerve to say ‘no.’ Before he could get an answer out of me, on-site security approached him and escorted him outside. It would have ended there, if he did not try and flag down a car in the parking lot. Security made the move to remove him from the premises, but he found his way back inside and did the worst thing he could possibly do: succumb to desperation.
He had taken a business card and scrawled “Do Anything - $ - Joe Outside” on the back.
I swallowed the lump in my throat, biting my tongue to keep from asking him why he would stoop so low - but I didn’t - I knew why. And now I had to follow the letter of the unforgiving law. He was long gone before the authorities arrived, but I knew that he was no better off. At least, if he had been arrested, he might have wound up back at the mental health clinic.
Were he so lucky.
Instead, I knew that, from today and on, “Joe” would become like thousands of others - derelict and hungry, lost and objectified, stumbling against the backdrop of endless night into living, senseless and otherwise unjustifiable perdition. Whatever humanity he had left, whoever he was, that name, that person, is somewhere, like his wrist band: lost - lying at the fringe of the unforgiving streets.
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